When Should a Student Learn How to Read Music?

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This is something that often comes up when anyone is having a discussion about the Suzuki Method. It is a common fallacy that Suzuki students don’t read music. In the so called “traditional” methods of learning, a piece of music is placed on the music stand at the same time the student is grappling with how to hold the bow, how to hold the instrument etc.

Consider the following fairly typical scenario:

‘Make sure you hold the bow correctly and keep the fourth finger curved’

‘Keep the violin up on your shoulder and don’t let it droop’

‘Keep the bow straight so that you don’t make a scratchy sound’

‘Keep your left hand fingers curved and listen carefully to every note’

‘Now when you’ve remembered to do all that, I’m going to place this piece of paper in front of you and I want you to interpret the symbols on it!’

For a six or seven year old this is clearly a ridiculous approach to take and will not produce good results. Instead, we focus on getting the basic instrumental skills such as holding the violin and bow, correct placement of the fingers so that they’re in tune, keeping the bow straight and learning how to produce good tone. Once those basic skills have been well established we then introduce note reading AS A SEPARATE SKILL FROM LEARNING HOW TO PLAY THE INSTRUMENT. 

As the student moves through the repertoire the playing skills and the reading skills gradually come together so that by the time the student has reached the Vivaldi Concerto in Am (Book Four) they should be reading music fluently.